Grey box

• Medium-sized tree growing to 20–30m high.
• Stem grows to 1m diameter.
• Trunk is generally straight and of good form.
• Bark is finely tessellated, grey box-type.
• Bark is persistent to the base of the branches, where it changes to a smooth light grey bark which is often shed in ribbons.

• Eucalyptus moluccana occurs throughout the central and northern coastal areas of New South Wales and Eastern Queensland, from Jervis Bay in the south to Atherton Tableland in the north.
• Eucalyptus woolsiana ssp. microcarpa is common in the wheatbelts of Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. It also has a limited occurrence in the Flinders and Mt Lofty Ranges of South Australia.

Colour

• Heartwood is usually pale brown but sometimes yellowish.
• Sapwood usually distinct and lighter in colour.

Grain

• Fine, uniform, even textured, usually interlocked.

• Engineering: as sawn and round timber used to construct wharves and bridges, railway sleepers, poles, piles, mining timbers.
• Construction: as unseasoned timber in general house framing, and as seasoned dressed timber in cladding, internal and external flooring, lining and joinery. Also in fencing, landscaping and retaining walls.
• Decorative: outdoor furniture, turnery, joinery.
• Others: boat building (keel and framing components, planking), carriage building, mallet heads, mauls, sporting goods, croquet mallets, paving blocks, fuelwood.

• Density: 1105kg/m³ at 12% moisture content; about 1.0m³ of seasoned sawn timber per tonne.
• Strength groups: E. moluccana—S2 unseasoned, SD2 seasoned; E. woolsiana ssp. macrocarpa—(S2) unseasoned, (SD2) seasoned.
• Stress grades: F11, F14, F17, F22 (unseasoned); F17, F22, F27, F34 (seasoned) when visually stress graded according to AS 2082—2000: Timber—Hardwood—Visually stress-graded for structural purposes.
• Joint groups: J1 unseasoned, JD1 seasoned.
• Shrinkage to 12% MC: 7.4% (tangential), 0.23% (radial)—these values are for E. moluccana only.
• Unit shrinkage: 0.43% (tangential), 0.23% (radial)—these values apply to timber of E. moluccana reconditioned after seasoning.
• Durability above-ground: Class 1 (life expectancy over 40 years).
• Durability in-ground: Class 1 (life expectancy over 25 years).
• Lyctine susceptibility: sapwood is susceptible to lyctid borer attack.
• Termite resistance: resistant.
• Preservation: sapwood readily impregnates with preservative.
• Seasoning: satisfactorily dries using conventional air and kiln seasoning.
• Hardness: very hard (rated 1 on a 6-class scale) to indent and work with hand tools.
• Machining: machines and dresses well.
• Fixing: no difficulty using standard fittings and fastenings.
• Gluing: as with most high-density species, machine and prepare surface immediately before gluing.
• Finishing: readily accepts paint, stain and polish.

General characteristics

• Sapwood: pale grey-brown.
• Heartwood: light brown to yellow-brown.
• Texture: uniform and fine; grain generally interlocked.

Wood structure

• Vessels: small, numerous, mostly solitary; heavily tylosed.
• Parenchyma (soft tissue): not visible with hand lens.
• Rays: very fine.

Other features

• Burning splinter test: match-size splinter burns to buff ash.

• Boland, DJ, Brooker, MIH, Chippendale, GM, Hall, N, Hyland, BPM, Johnston, RD, Kleinig, DA and Turner, JD 2006, Forest trees of Australia, 5th ed., CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Australia.
• Bootle, K 2005, Wood in Australia: Types, properties and uses, 2nd ed., McGraw-Hill, Sydney.
• Ilic, J 1991, CSIRO atlas of hardwoods, Crawford House Press, Bathurst, Australia.
• Queensland Government, DAF 2018, Construction timbers in Queensland: Properties and specifications for satisfactory performance of construction timbers in Queensland. Class 1 and Class 10 buildings, Books 1 & 2, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Brisbane.